Assuming we have a backup server stuffed with nearline SAS for D2D and a tape library attached for true off-site backup, what would people suggest we look at please?

We are predominantly an ESXi shop, we have a few Windows physicals but the major issue is that our main file server is approx 8tb with most of it being iSCSI volumes mounted within the VM, and the other main server is a physical linux box with around 8tb on it so capacity licensing can skew things since most of the capacity is on a couple of the boxes.

Basic requirement is to be able to do D2D2T with global dedupe and on the VMware side to be able to do file level recovery.

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That's alot of data there. Quick question because I'm curious. Is that really all live data? What I mean is it changing or just need access. We're also Engineering with no where near what you have, but I have a large portion that is more read-only archive of older projects that is not part of our regular backups. Also, we have more data with our detail library and other state/county things that doesn't frequently change and is not part of our regular backup. Just curious.

Another vote for Unitrends. Is this just for your servers? I would look at one of the large physical appliances for the primary D2D component. As for the off site, does it need to be to tape or can it go to disk / another location [live replication] or to the cloud? Unitrends can do all these things [D2D2x] but tape is not a preferred method. That's not because they cannot do it, but that nobody really wants to be archiving to tape any more!!

With the ESXi host, what version / license are you using? They can do some pretty cool instant recovery stuff where it spins up a VM of the latest backup using its own storage with your choice of host. Their Bare Metal Recovery will also take care of the physical server.

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OK - Still trying to grab the nettle of what is driving you away from Commvault.

What does it matter? OP wants to look at the options. Its a good business practice to review what you have and compare it to the competition to see if their is a better solution then what you already have.

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hutchingsp - Unitrends should meet your needs including D2D2T, deduplication, granular restore for VMware and Windows, and protection for Linux. We have a public demo twice weekly, if you're interested, and I'm always happy to get you in touch with the right rep or partner for your area.

Idera's Server Backup product sounds like it is right up the alley of what you are looking for. It is designed to handle massive amounts of data and is super-efficient. And best of all, no other comparable solution comes close on price. Feel free to private message me and I can set you up with an engineer who can answer any question you may have.

Or better put, what is the current solution not doing that you would like a new solution to do.

Cost, plain and simple.

Dedupe (ideally global) and the ability to stream copies off to tape for off-site is a must-have as with 20tb even with a half-decent internet connection there is no other practical way to get it offsite.

Understand what you mean by tape as well - backup purely to disk or 'across' the WAN does not always cut it for an ever growing Dataset size - and if you are forced to do a full across the WAN (eg a sync issue between sites - forcing another full) then you will be there for ever.

My take:

1) Whatever you choose needs to be superb at managing tape and the on-going catalogue that will arise when you end up with 2-3 years of tape media

2) Syncs and Snapshot technologies will only take you so far - but a corrupted base or a corrupted snapshot stream will wipe your data

3) Is this really a 'Backup Issue' or it at a 'Data Management' issue

So - without truly understanding your environment, I would say

* You are going to have to spend a few good dollars to simply replace Commvault

* Staying with Commvault is a bone in your throat by the sound of it - they've 'got you' and pricing will continue to go up.

I'm going with Denis above - and will throw my hat in with Archiving as a 'solution' rather than backup.

I say solution, as I have no idea of your environment, but I would be asking

* How many servers

* What’s generating 80% of your data - and in what format (eg is it file, or is it a complex data structure)

If most of your data is simply NTFS based file data, you stand a very good chance of cutting your backup back down to size, which would then bring you into the realm of 'easier priced' backup solutions to handle a smaller backup load.

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hutchingsp - Unitrends should meet your needs including D2D2T, deduplication, granular restore for VMware and Windows, and protection for Linux. We have a public demo twice weekly, if you're interested, and I'm always happy to get you in touch with the right rep or partner for your area.

20 TB would be "cake walk" for Arkeia Software on RAID1 SSD and well below the Commvault price. (As long as your network hardware is Enterprise Class and not Netgear LOL!) YES, I said "software" on your current backup server (Linux of course) backing up to disk and replicating to tape OR going directly to tape with parallel data streams for your archive backups. How many of what type of tape drives are in your library?? With 20 TB , I'll guess six LTO5 Drives. Ever hear six LTO5 tape drive whistle instead of "shoe shine" ?? It's beautiful music :)

Your scenario sounds VERY similar to something we are going to be discussing in a Google+ Hangout today at noon EDT. Seriously, this is not just shamelessly plugging something I am hosting. You should take a look at Backup Exec V-Ray Edition for your environment.

BE 2012 V-Ray edition is built for virtualized environments and will also take care of your D2X2X needs and dedupe. It will handle all your physical & virtual needs including your Linux box(es).

I am happy to talk further with you about this, but checkout the Hangout today. We are going to talk a bit about about the V-Ray technology inside BE 2012 and the break out the licensing model.

It is licensed all you can eat, per occupied socket. One of my colleagues also has a nice blog where she breaks down what is in the V-Ray Edition.

I would suggest taking a look at EMC's Avamar. EMC continues to be an industry leader in purpose built backup appliances and with the introduction of our new Business Edition modules this quarter EMC has re-affirmed our commitment to building solutions specifically for the mid-market:

In addition to having industry leading gloabl de-duplication and VMware integration, Avamar has the added benefits of high availability and data integrity protections which are not availiable in most backup appliances today.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please feel free to reach out.

20 TB would be "cake walk" for Arkeia Software on RAID1 SSD and well below the Commvault price. (As long as your network hardware is Enterprise Class and not Netgear LOL!) YES, I said "software" on your current backup server (Linux of course) backing up to disk and replicating to tape OR going directly to tape with parallel data streams for your archive backups. How many of what type of tape drives are in your library?? With 20 TB , I'll guess six LTO5 Drives. Ever hear six LTO5 tape drive whistle instead of "shoe shine" ?? It's beautiful music :)

Arkeia is interesting as I hadn't heard of it until recently (I'd like to consider myself fairly knowledgeable in that I know most of the name even if I know nothing beyond having heard the name) and now it seems to pop up a fair bit.

Is the dedube global?

Right now we have a pair of LTO5 drives in a library.

I'm hopeful we'll stick with Commvault, like I said it's purely a cost thing, but I'd be interested to know how Arkeia license if anyone here is in the know?

Arkeia has been around since the mid nineties. Come to think of it, their v4.2 client was on the Red Hat Halloween CD. (I don't dare move it outside of it's display case to double check though!) Dedupe is Target (all OSes) or Source Side (Linux, Windows and MAC soon I believe). They have this thing called "progressive dedupe" which is step higher than variable block. IE: using variable block and the "progressive part" slides within the newly found blocks. An example would be a 4k block change and the "progressive dedupe" will slide and find the single 1k of that 4k block that actually changed and only save the 1k block.

OK so back to this. Assuming sticking with Commvault may not happen and that we are looking at data management so we have a smaller "live" set, I'm still interested in options.

The way I see it Unitrends would be very tempting except that AIUI their virtual appliance has a 10tb limit and obviously cannot write to tape, and their physical appliances are something we wouldn't spend the money on since we have kick-ass physical hardware right now so we don't need hardware.

May I suggest Quantum's vmPRO backup application for virtual environments? It can protect all your VM data in native format so that the data to can be written to any NAS device and restored from anywhere without the need of the backup application (since it is in native format, you can simply use a standard file browser). You can quickly and easily restore files or whole VMs and boot those VM remotely if necessary as well, again with ease because the data is kept in native format. vmPRO will soon support tape out with LTFS, so protecting this data to tape will not be an issue.

I agree that dedupe is a must have as well, and Quantum has a virtual appliance edition of the DXi dedupe appliance that can store up to 30TB of data (using standard 15:1 compression ratios, although most customers in virtual backups will get much better rates).

vmPRO also has patented data reduction technology that eliminates the amount of data sent by the VM to the vmPRO appliance, reducing the amount of disk I/O, network traffic and getting your VMs back to work faster.

Both products can be used in full-featured mode by downloading from our website, with the first TB ON US FREE, with no time restraints. Check it out at www.quantum.com/vmpro

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OK so back to this. Assuming sticking with Commvault may not happen and that we are looking at data management so we have a smaller "live" set, I'm still interested in options.

The way I see it Unitrends would be very tempting except that AIUI their virtual appliance has a 10tb limit and obviously cannot write to tape, and their physical appliances are something we wouldn't spend the money on since we have kick-ass physical hardware right now so we don't need hardware.

Any other suggestions?

I did want to clarify a few items in your post -

Unitrends Enterprise Backup (our virtual appliance) can write to tape

You can stack unlimited TBs of UEB together - so there is no limit as to the number of TBs that you can stack together.

Please let me know if there are any other questions about Untirends I can answer for you.

1) Whatever you choose needs to be superb at managing tape and the on-going catalogue that will arise when you end up with 2-3 years of tape media

It's not the size of the catalog index that will get you, but the complexity of it's contents (data structure) which will be an I/O performance robber during backup and restores in the future. Hosting the catalog on 250 GB RAID1 SSD will solve that issue.

Excellent (not just good) tape management is "mandatory" when ARCHIVING large amounts of data because tape inventory becomes a hassle if your solution cannot manage it.

Knowing which block/byte of data is on what segment of the media and able to locate the bytes without reading the entire media

Ability to list the media required for the restore and (omit) the media that is not currently on site

The way I see it Unitrends would be very tempting except that AIUI their virtual appliance has a 10tb limit and obviously cannot write to tape, and their physical appliances are something we wouldn't spend the money on since we have kick-ass physical hardware right now so we don't need hardware.

As Katie said, you can write to tape from UEB & there are ways around any data size limits. Have you done a web demo with Unitrends? It sounds like you could do with setting up a call with a sales engineer to go through your setup with you & see how they can make the most of it. I am sure Katie can get you in touch with the right people.